Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed
Review: I was very excited when I heard that Michael Crichton had written a new book. After all, I've always enjoyed his books tremendously (especially after he tore the press a new one during a talk to the National Press Corps a few years ago in Washington--I have been a BIG Crichton fan since then). After the first few chapters I was hoping the story would develop into another one of the wonderful Crichton techno-thrillers but the book deteriorated into a medieval adventure story after about fifty pages. If you are into adventure stories, by all means buy this book. But this adventure story could never live up to Clive Cussler.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book from Crichton, as usual
Review: I found this to be an excellent book. The pace moves right along and it is hard to put down. The premise might be stretching it a bit, but hey,...it could happen! I love the way Crichton writes; easy to read, to the point and he makes the technical stuff accessible to all readers. Its hard to rate this against his other books because they all are equally great. You won't be disappointed to buy this book.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable
Review: I am somewhat surprised by some of the reviews I have read for Timeline. I purchased the 6 hour audio version (read by Stephen Lang - an excellent job) for the Thanksgiving road trip, and enjoyed it enough to add the book to my basket.Timeline sets up the story by saying that while the concept (time travel, or actually multi-universe travel) is impossible, we are surrounded by everyday things which would have been unimagined or considered impossible at the turn of the last century. Then, like a good X Files story, little things happen which cannot be explained. At the center of these impossibilities is a secretive, multi-billion dollar corporation led by an aggresive billionaire with a very hard edge (I thought Crichton borrowed some characteristics from Bill Gates). Eventually, our key characters are thrust back in time for a quick and simple mission. But as always happens in a good story, things go terribly wrong, and they find they must survive in this somewhat alien and definitely dangerous world. This book borrows much of the storyline from Jurrasic Park: Super rich guy uses science to create the impossible (and for the same reason), things go wrong, and it is a chase until the end. The story did strike me as being scripted for a movie, but that is par for the course for Crichton. It was definitely an enjoyable escape. A book with a very similar storyline (historian goes back into the middle ages to observe, and things go terribly wrong), is Connie Willis' Doomsday Book. I recommend both.
Rating:
Summary: reading it was an emotional and educational experience
Review: The application of the Quantum Physics theories was fascinating with its contrasts of "then" and "now".The time of knighthood sounded about as raw as it probably was! The characters were larger than life but also believably vulnerable and imperfect.(I wondered who his models were?)I couldn't stop reading and when I finished I felt like I had been through a Raiders of the Lost Ark experience!
Rating:
Summary: Is something wrong with the current 4-star rating?
Review: Up front, I've not read this book nor am I obsessed with numbers, but I was struck by the fact that the book had an overall 4-star rating over 28 reviews when I could see a lot of 1- and 2-star reviews. So I counted the reviews (35 actually) along with the stars (126) and came up with a 3.6-star rating. (Are these things rounded up?) In fairness to the number of reviews mentioned, I subtracted the last 7 reviews to back up to the 28-review mark and re-tallied the score for a 3.35-star rating. I mention all this because I was considering buying the book and, like most lazy/busy people, I tend to look at the average star rating to give me a clue. I wonder if this book is the exception or if this sort of accounting is standard. (Sorry for skewing the curve with a 3-star rating...I had to give it something to enter this message. Considering the accuracy of the existing curve, however, it probably doesn't matter much)
Rating:
Summary: Like usual, an original
Review: Pretty good book,finished all 450 pages in 2 days. That shows how much excitement there was in that book.
Rating: 
Summary: Doomsday Book Redux
Review: Am I the only one who sees the more than striking similarity betweenTimeline and The Doomsday Book by Connis Willis? The church, the egocentric bad guy, the internal translater, oh no are we going to get back to the correct time period, etc, etc, etc. Where Crichton cannot seem to make the characters believable and three dimensional, Willis does....read the far superior Doomsday Book.
Rating:
Summary: Don't make time for Crichton's Timeline
Review: You'd think a book about time travel, written by the author of "Jurassic Park," would be great escapist fiction. Instead, Michael Crichton's "Timeline" is a book to escape [[[[ital]]]]from[[[[[end ital]]]]]. To his credit, Crichton takes the "what if" genre very seriously. He does a lot of research, and his creations are often rooted in cutting-edge science. In "Timeline," a shadowy high-tech corporation called ITC learns how to reconfigure a human being and slip him into another universe. This technology involves quantum physics and parallel computing. Crichton understands this stuff, but the average reader may feel about six college degrees of separation from it. ITC is also funding the restoration of a medieval French ruin. Professor Johnston, head of the restoration team, discovers what ITC is doing and demands to be sent to 14th-century France. Johnston lands in trouble and before you can say "pass the Grey Poupon," three of his colleagues are beamed to medieval France to save him. "Timeline" is filled with silly dialogue and thinly etched characters. The only interesting one is medieval historian Andre Marek, a slab of Mensa beefcake with a jones for jousting. His ultimate fate is easy to guess. The brutish action takes place during a war that actually happened, but repetition and predictability ultimately drain the thrills. Marek and Co. run around castles and mix it up with knights. They get separated and reunited. They get thrown into dank cells and then escape. Meanwhile, the cast of British and French medieval characters spend most of the book scheming and yelling. Worse, Crichton assigns the main villain - ITC chief Doniger - a punishment that makes the heroes look bad. "Timeline" is about satisfying as watching armor rust.
Rating: 
Summary: Strange departure, not arriving in our time
Review: Found the time travel plot a bit hokey. Plus, Chrichton excels at the intricacies of science and this book's deep-fried time travel explanations seem poorly thought out. We may have found the first bit of evidence that Mr. Chrichton has spent too much time watching movies made from his books. To many movies with easy outs that fit the momentum of the story. To find suggestions for better reading, visit Recommendo.com
Rating:
Summary: Timeline is intriguing but just doesn't flow
Review: Michael Chrichton has written an excellent novel, well thought out and gripping. However, I found some of the passages to be slow and heavy. In addition, I found the switching bewteen time periods a bit strained and contrived. One author who has mastered this technique is Ann Benson, author of the Plague Tales and the Burning Road. If you liked Timeline, I would highly recommend both of these books; Benson does an excellent job of tackling two tales in one book. Timeline is an interesting and intriguing book, but would benefit from a more flowing style and better editing.
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